Chapter 18 ELLA
Zaph hadn’t been gone that long. Hours, maybe.
But already the chamber felt too big, too empty.
I told myself it was ridiculous; he wasn’t my boyfriend, and this wasn’t some sappy human romance where I counted minutes until the guy texted back.
Still, I caught myself glancing toward the door more than once, waiting for a shadow that didn’t appear.
I sat in the huge library, if you could even call it that. Library made me think of dusty shelves, paperbacks stacked crooked, and the smell of ink and glue. This was something else entirely.
The chamber stretched up and up, a cathedral of knowledge.
Towers of crystal spines rose like trees, each one humming faintly, alive with stored memory.
Holograms shimmered between them, flickering windows of history that dissolved and reformed when you touched them.
One moment, I brushed my fingers across a panel and watched a star bloom and die in a heartbeat, the next an entire alien species flickered into being before vanishing like smoke.
Holovids hovered in the air, scenes playing on loops, wars fought on worlds I couldn’t name, cities grown out of light, oceans that spanned skies instead of seas. It was overwhelming and intoxicating all at once. And lonely.
For the life of me, I couldn't imagine Zaph here. Too much stillness, too much thought. He’d probably mutter about wasted space and then lean against a column, arms crossed, looking like he owned the whole damn universe. The thought made my chest ache in ways I didn’t want to examine.
I rubbed at my temple and muttered, “Seriously, with all this, you guys still don’t have interstellar cell service? Priorities, people.”
That was when the footsteps came, echoing faintly against the crystalline floor. I turned, half-hoping, half-dreading.
Not Zaph.
Captain Ilythas approached, his armor throwing back the soft glow of the holograms. He stopped at the edge of my table, posture sharp, face unreadable.
“Nythor, Oracle of the Abyss, wishes to see you,” he said.
Unease rippled down my spine. Zaph hadn’t said a word about visitors.
And the title alone—Oracle of the Abyss—was enough to make my skin prickle.
I could all too well picture the frantically screaming man: Aelyth, Aelyth.
Oracle of the Abyss didn’t exactly scream cozy tea-time chat either.
Of all the gods, he seemed to be the creepiest. Sure, Thyros and Dravok had their moments too, but Nythor? But Nythor's vibes were creepy, creepy.
I rubbed my palms on my thighs. “Uh… right. Okay. Sure. Why not?”
Ilythas' eyes softened, just slightly. “If you are uncomfortable, you do not need to receive him. But if you do… I will be here.”
I met his gaze, searching for any sign that this was unusual, dangerous, or something I should refuse. But he just stood there, calm as a mountain.
Loneliness nipped at me again, sharper now. If I had to wait days—or longer—for Zaph’s return without being able to reach him, maybe a little company, even from a creepy oracle, was better than nothing.
Still, my gut twisted.
“Yeah,” I said, forcing my voice steady. “Okay. Let him in. But you stay right there, Ilythas. If things get weird, you’re my backup plan.”
His mouth twitched, the closest I’d ever seen him come to a smile. “Always, my lady.”
The word always echoed longer than it should have, steadying me as the air in the library shifted. The holovids flickered, a ripple of distortion running through the walls of crystal towers like they’d all taken a collective breath.
Nythor didn’t walk in so much as appear, his outline stretching, unraveling, and then knitting back together like a shadow deciding to wear flesh for a little while.
His hair was dark, his eyes… I shuddered; his eyes were wrong.
Not just black, not just void, but fractured with glimmers, like he was looking at a thousand versions of me at once.
“Little spark,” he said, in a sing-song voice, whose notes made my skin crawl. “You sit among echoes and wonder why the silence weighs so heavy.”
I swallowed, darting a glance at Ilythas. He stood solid as stone by the door, hand resting casually—but not really—where I supposed his invisible sword… what hovered? Good. Backup plan in place.
“I wasn’t wondering anything,” I said, sharper than I felt. “I was just… browsing.” I waved a hand at the flickering holovids, one of which obligingly replayed a supernova like fireworks.
Nythor tilted his head, his smile stretched too wide, too knowing. “Browsing truths mortals were never meant to hold. Dangerous habits, little spark. Dangerous appetites.”
My pulse jumped, but I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms to cover it. “Yeah, well, browsing is all I’ve got while I’m on house arrest. Unless you’ve come to check out a book, in which case you should know the late fees are brutal.”
The Oracle laughed, too loud, too delighted. It wasn’t a sound that belonged in this world. “Ah, yes. The sharp tongue. Zapharos shields you like treasure, and yet your words are blades enough.”
That made me sit up straighter. “You’ve seen him?”
“Always,” Nythor whispered, and the word made the holograms flicker again, warping into scenes I couldn’t understand. “The Nox Eternum does not stop at walls or wars. It whispers. It shows me. And you…” His eyes narrowed, fever-bright. “You shine where he is blackest.”
More chills swept down my arms. Nythor’s smile never faded as he drifted closer, making the library’s holovids stutter and freeze wars mid-battle, halting stars mid-birth.
“Stay where you are,” Ilythas barked, his hand snapping to his sword. “That’s close enough.”
For a heartbeat, the Oracle obeyed, tilting his head as if considering. Then the air cracked. In a blur, he was on me, his hand clamping around my arm with inhuman strength. He yanked me forward, slamming me against him.
Ilythas' blade cleared half its arc when Nythor’s gaze flicked toward him, eyes glimmering with fractured starlight. His voice was sing-song and terrible. “You saw nothing. She is still here. She is safe.”
And then the void swallowed me whole.
The library, Ilythas, the flickering holovids, it all ripped away in a rush of cold nothingness. Darkness pressed against my skin, filled my lungs, and smothered sound and sight alike. It was like being dragged through the hollow between heartbeats.
The darkness tore apart; light and shape began to reform around me until I crashed backward into a chair. Cold metal, deep cushions, it looked like a captain’s seat from one of those sci-fi movies.
We were aboard a ship.
Nythor slid into the console chair beside me, and his long fingers began to dance over screen panels that bloomed with alien script that meant nothing to me and looked all too familiar all at once.
I had seen those things a hundred times in movies.
His voice was a whisper of amusement as the ship responded.
Panic clawed up my throat. He’d kidnapped me.
He’d dragged me out of Zaph’s fortress, out of Ilythas' protection, and onto a God-damned spaceship.
Anger surged through me, and I jumped to my feet, half-ready to bolt, half-ready to throw myself at him and claw my way free.
My knees wobbled, but adrenaline shoved me forward.
His head turned; his eyes glinted dark. “Sit,” he said softly.
To my utter horror, my body obeyed. I collapsed back into the chair, my breath hitched, my hands trembled against the armrests, and my mind screamed at my extremities to get up, to fight, to do something, but my limbs refused.
A heavy fog pressed down inside my skull, muffling my thoughts, dragging them into a sluggish circle.
I felt him in my head. Cold fingers brushing through the corners of my mind like he was rifling through my memories, testing the weight of my will.
“No,” I rasped in a thin voice that sounded near breaking. “Get out of me—”
Nythor only smiled; his hands still moved over the controls. “Shhh, little spark. The Dark Abyss opens more easily when you don’t struggle.”
Terror wrapped its icy hands around my heart as his presence pressed deeper, like cold needles threading through my skull. I jerked in the chair, my teeth grinding against the pain.
“Where is Earth?” His voice was soft, almost curious. It sounded way too calm for the agony he was causing me.
The pressure continued to build, sharp and unbearable. It wasn’t just in my head, it was in my chest, my spine, my very bones. Like something inside me was trying to crawl out, tearing at the seams of flesh and soul. I gagged on a sob, clutching at the arms of the seat.
“I—I don’t know!” My voice cracked, the words sounding like a half-scream. “I have no fucking clue where Earth is! Because I have no fucking clue where we are, you sick bastard.”
He tilted his head, unbothered, as if I were a specimen under glass. The sensation shifted, tugging, pulling like invisible hooks raking through my brain.
My stomach lurched. The revulsion was so complete, so alien, I wanted to peel my own skin off just to make it stop. The fog thickened around me, my own thoughts muffled under the weight of his invasion. My soul… it felt like he was tugging at my soul, trying to wrench it free.
Nythor smiled faintly, his fractured eyes gleaming. “You shine, little spark. Even when you do not know where you burn.”
The words slithered through the agony, and I hated him more than I had ever hated anything in my life.
I felt another tug—like a hook tearing at the back of my skull—and I screamed, my body jerked against restraints that weren’t even there.
Then, suddenly, the pressure snapped free.
The fog receded just enough for me to breathe.
Nythor leaned back in his chair. His fractured eyes narrowed, and anger flashed in their depths.
“You really don’t know where,” he murmured, and for the first time, his voice wasn’t sing-song, wasn’t amused. It was cold. “Do you?”
I sagged forward, clutching my head, still trembling. “No,” I rasped, fury and tears burning together. “I told you—I don’t know where Earth is.”
His jaw tightened. “That changes things.”
His long fingers drummed against the armrest, each tap echoing through the chamber like the tick of some cosmic clock.
Then, without him touching a single control, the ship shuddered to life.
Panels lit, engines thrummed, and through the massive viewing pane before us, the darkness began to shift.
The void around us peeled back, and the ship moved forward, accelerating into the lightless abyss.
I lifted my head—my vision was still swimming—just in time to see it: a vast black hole yawning across the stars, the same one that had once dragged me screaming towards it when I was on Rotodex. Only now, it was in reverse.
We were leaving it.
The sight stole the breath from my lungs, a terror I hadn’t felt since that first abduction slammed back into me.
The stars warped and bent at the edges of the singularity, as if the universe itself were trying to claw us back into the dark.
My stomach dropped, and all my memories collided—the Cryon ship, the panic, the helplessness.
I clutched the arms of my seat until my knuckles ached. “No,” I whispered. “Not again. Not like this.”
Beside me, Nythor only smiled thinly, watching the stars twist as if they were his playthings.